Property insurers, such as insurance companies and other adjusting companies, have long dealt with problems associated with the replacement of damaged flooring in residential and commercial buildings of those they insure. A major expense is felt by both an insurer and a customer, or insured flooring owner, due to time expended during both the evaluation of the claim and restitution of the damaged flooring. Generally, in addition to the cost of replacement or restoration, the insurer also faces lodging expenses incurred by the customer if the damaged flooring creates an inhabitable condition in the building. Additionally, whether the building is a home or a business, the customer is inconvenienced until the replacement of the damaged flooring is completed, especially if the building cannot be fully utilized.
Presently, monetary value relationships for flooring generally rely on a subjective valuation. For example, one method used by insurers is to agree in advance with the customer on a monetary worth for a specified flooring owned by the customer when an insurance policy or agreement is formed. One problem is that such a method can produce disparate results. If the flooring is overvalued, then the insurer pays more than the flooring is worth. If the flooring is undervalued, the customer will only receive the agreed upon amount and will often be dissatisfied, especially if prices of equivalent replacement flooring have substantially increased above the agreed amount the customer will receive.
Another method often employed by insurers to determine the value of the existing flooring in order to settle damage claims is to require the customer to “get two quotes” from two independent flooring retailers which estimate the cost of replacement flooring. Generally, one quote, or an average of both quotes, is used to determine the amount of monetary coverage that will be allotted to the customer by the insurer. Such a practice can result in fraud by the retailer to the detriment of the insurer, for example, when the retailer “buries” a deductible by adding extra cost so as to effectively pass the expense of the deductible to the insurer. Also, since the customer is responsible for the acquisition of the quotes, further delay and/or high-price quotes may result, further adding to the cost incurred by the insurer.
An alternative method often used by insurers is to send a sample of the damaged flooring to a remote laboratory so that laboratory technicians can determine certain specifications for the composition and construction of the flooring so that comparably equivalent replacement flooring with similar composition and construction can be determined and/or suggested. Laboratory testing can be both costly and time consuming, as laboratory results and replacement flooring suggestions are not returned until several working days after samples have been sent out and received by the laboratory. Such delay can result in further inconvenience to the customer and added hotel and other expenses to the insurer. Further, the evaluation does not always result in a fair assessment since the tester or technician of the damaged flooring is in a laboratory remotely located from the flooring site and has not seen the actual applied flooring, and are instead dependent on the subjective selection of samples by an adjuster.
The current methods of assigning values of monetary worth to flooring, such as for example those discussed above, which involve subjective methods and/or non-expert assessments, often result in unfair value assignments and dissatisfaction, or possibly even litigation, between the insurer and the customer. A major problem with current subjective and comparative methods is that such methods do not allow for an objective scientific evaluation to determine an initial monetary market value of the specified flooring, i.e. a value of the specified flooring in new, pre-use condition, or further, to determine a devaluated monetary market value, i.e. a value of the specified flooring taking into consideration the loss of value or depreciated value of the specified flooring caused by normal wear or abuse incurred during the life of the specified flooring. The determination of the devaluated monetary market value is especially beneficial, because when degradation due to such loss factors as aging, staining, wear, and tear of the specified flooring are not taken into account to devalue the specified flooring, the insurer may pay more than the realistic current worth of the specified flooring.
To Applicant's knowledge there is no interconnected system which includes estimation logic, project management logic and installation logic for managing an insurance claim from start to finish in a just in time fashion.
Thus, a need exists for a flooring evaluation system which more objectively assigns monetary market value to flooring, and more specifically, but not by way of limitation, which more objectively assigns an initial monetary market value and/or a devaluated monetary market value in a timely and efficient manner, so as to facilitate the providing of restitution to customers and to reduce costs of expenditures, inconvenience, and delays incurred by customers and/or insurers. It is to such a flooring evaluation system that the present invention is directed.